West Ham’s Premiership survival last year required a lot of luck. The were bound for relegation, 11 Premiership matches without a win and a difficult trip to Ewood Park to face European hopefuls Blackburn ahead of them.

However, with the score at 1-1, Bobby Zamora’s shot hit Carlos Tevez before crossing the line. Tevez was in an offside position and the ball failed to cross the line. Howard Webb gave a goal and West Ham went on to win 2-1. Everyone knows what followed, Sheffield United weren’t happy, but the Hammers won 7 of their last 9 games to stay up!

This time around and West Ham aren’t struggling. They are 10th, underachieving maybe. Blackburn lie 8th (not including Saturday’s matches), seven points ahead having played a game more.

The statistics don’t look good for the London side. They are yet to beat a north west club this season while Blackburn are undefeated in 8 encounters with clubs from the capital! Rovers have lost 1 of the last 7 home games (4-0 against Aston Villa) and stand much better in the head to head. Blackburn have won 28 of the meetings between the sides at Ewood Park, with only 11 wins for West Ham and 5 draws.

The game also sees a return to Blackburn for Lucas Neill and Craig Bellamy. Unlikely that the pair will get a good reception from the Ewood faithful! Neill’s decision to quit Rovers was met poorly by the fans, similarly was that of Bellamy to Liverpool.

The one thing going in West Ham’s favour is that they have a full squad to choose from. Blackburn are without their solid and reliable captain Ryan Nelsen and England hopeful David Bentley, who scored twice in the win against Newcastle on Saturday, both are suspended for one game.

Score prediction

Despite being without two good players in Nelsen and Bentley, Blackburn can call on Andre Oijer and Steven Reid to fill the gaps. West Ham are a good side but the home advantage will give Rovers the edge.

Blackburn Rovers 2-1 West Ham United

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Blackburn Rovers chairman John Williams has called for sin-bins to be introduced in football. But could this actually work?

His call came after Blackburn midfielder David Dunn was sent off for a second bookable offence in their Premiership game against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday. Replays later showed that the initial booking was extremely harsh, but when the second foul was made referee Chris Foy had no choice but to issue a second booking and send Dunn off. This effectively ended Rovers’ hopes of staging a second half comeback after going 2-0 down in the first half.

This would mean that, instead of a player being sent off and banned, he would have to sit in the dugout for a period of time, say twenty minutes. At which point he would be allowed back onto the pitch to continue with the game.

The argument is that too often referees get it wrong at the top level and can ruin the game, both in turns of the team on the receiving end of the dismissals chances of winning, and the viewing spectacle for the football fan.

Williams’ point is a fair one, why should teams have to endure such miscarriages of justice, and suffer defeat because of it. When playing away at Old Trafford, or at any of the big away grounds it is difficult enough to bring home the points. Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal in particular have huge amounts of home fans expecting a win, and it is easy for a referee to go along what they are shouting for. The atmosphere also making it extremely difficult for players to play in with such a small contingent of their own fans at the game (75,710 fans at the Manchester United v Blackburn game, 1,900 of them from Blackburn!)

The problem with this is that people are always asking for rule changes, yet football has existed for many years with very little change.

There are so many issues currently being lobbied for by footballing personalities and supporters such as goalline technology, bringing back salary caps, limiting the amount of foreign players and then this new debate about sin-bins. With the traditional values still held in high regard in English football, it would be very difficult to implement some of these changes.

For revolutionary ideas like these to be fully implemented the FA, who have been set in their ways for so many years, would have to have a serious rethink about their stance on keeping the traditions of English football.

Should sin-bins be introduced in football? Have your say in the comments section below.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News

Blackburn Rovers have enjoyed an excellent start to this season’s Premiership. Indeed it is the best start they’ve had since 1994/95 when they went on to take the title. So what exactly is it that the club is doing so well?

When looking at the way the team is performing you have to start at the top. The board control Rovers’ finances extremely well. Long gone are the days of Jack Walker’s millions, the finances at Ewood are a lot tighter since the clubs biggest fan passed away in 2000. Clubs that suffer financially often suffer with their on field fortunes, in the transfer market this season the club have spent less than anyone else in the league. They haven’t even hit the 5 million pounds mark, with Roque Santa Cruz at 3.5 million being their most expensive acquisition. This leads into the next point:

Mark Hughes. Hughes’ summer spending has been minimal, strengthening only those areas that need to be strengthened, and by doing it as cheaply as possible. He saw an opportunity to sign a quality striker who was looking for a way out of Germany and took it. This was his only major buy for the club so far this season. He also signed exciting Dutch prospect Maceo Rigters (you may remember his overhead kick knocking England out of the under-21 championships in the Summer) for half a million and goalkeeper Gunnar Nielsen for a small fee.

Since becoming gaffer at Blackburn, Hughes has proved his ability to shrewdly acquire players that have perhaps not been performing too well at other clubs and get the best out of them. Two shining examples of this are the central defensive partnership of Chris Samba and Ryan Nelsen. Both were taken to the north west club as virtual unknowns and both have flourished, becoming the backbone of one of the strongest, most solid defensive partnerships in the Premiership. Nelsen was signed from American club DC United for next to nothing. The New Zealand international had a trial at Charlton but was rejected before arriving at Ewood. He has done so well that he now wears the captain’s armband! Samba, a DR Congo international came from Germans Hertha Berlin where he was struggling to get a game. He is the complete player. Defensively solid, 17 feet tall, good with his head and a solid striker of the ball (see Tottenham away)!

So Hughes has a pretty solid base. He inherited one of the greatest goalkeepers in the world in Brad Friedel. So often overlooked when it comes to naming the ‘Top 20 keepers’ or lists of a similar fashion, the big American pulls off world class saves on an almost weekly basis! To add to this impressive looking defence he took Stephen Warnock from Liverpool. Warnock is one of those players who showed promise but was never going to be good enough to be a regular at Liverpool due to the fact they can just put their hands in their pockets and pick up a world class foreign defender instead! He signed for Rovers and has been quality ever since.

If you look at great teams over the years they always have two quality strikers. One striker can keep you in the upper part of the league but not necessarily take you any further. If you go back to the 1994/95 season Rovers had the SAS, Sutton and Shearer. Between them they scored almost 50 goals and won the side the title. The club has once again discovered a quality partnership in McCarthy and Santa Cruz. With McCarthy signed for a couple of million last season Blackburn were able to move forward after losing Craig Bellamy. However, without the support of another top quality striker Blackburn could only muster a 10th place finish. With the partnership of McCarthy and Santa Cruz, backed up by the ever-improving Matt Derbyshire and Jason Roberts they are looking lethal in front of goal.

Then, look back into midfield and they have yet more class. Wingers David Bentley and Morten Gamst Pedersen have impressed under Hughes. Pedersen, after being signed by Graeme Souness was left out in the cold but soon found his feet under Sparky and has flourished, Bentley has been rewarded for his excellent form with an England call up. In the middle they have everyone’s favourite Welshman in Robbie Savage. A superb player who is hated by every opposition and loved by whoever he’s playing for. Despite being the oldest man in the world, Tugay continues to impress with his ability to play the perfect pass and to score from anywhere! David Dunn has also impressed since returning to his hometown club. He struggled with injury at Birmingham and when Hughes gave him his chance to return to Blackburn he took it with both hands.

The gist of it is this: With Mark Hughes in charge Blackburn Rovers have gone from relegation battlers to Champions League hopefuls. The likelihood is that they won’t have the legs to make the final push into the Champions League, but they are once again a force in English football.

Dan Clough writes at Blackburn Offside and his personal blog.

From Soccerlens.com - Football News